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A research project led by AIMS which explores how fish and sound may benefit coral reef recovery has completed in-field experiments at east and west coast coral reefs. Researchers working on the Reef Song project are continuing to analyse data and publish their work in scientific journals. The team were in Coral Bay, Western Australia, recently to collect final data from the 60 patch reefs built at Ningaloo Reef by AIMS scientists in 2021, and share initial findings from the project with the local community. The scientists also decommissioned another 60 experimental reefs at Lizard Island in the Great Barrier Reef late in 2025. 

Harnessing the relationships between fish and corals

Dr Rohan Brooker, an AIMS fish ecologist who leads Reef Song, said the project is helping scienti...

In 2022, a Russian whale researcher made a startling discovery on Bering Island off Russia’s Pacific coast: a severed killer whale fin marked with the teeth of another killer whale. Two years later, it happened again, just two kilometres from the original find. 

The evidence initially pointed to a whale on whale event, suggesting that killer whales engage in cannibalism. But on closer observation of the killer whales’ social groups, researchers discovered they were witnessing an evolutionary process in motion.

Bering Island is home to groups of resident killer whales that feed on fish and are characterised by their exceptionally strong family structure. Each family is led by a female and may include up to four generations of descendants...

The opening weeks of 2026 are already redefining what is possible for ocean protection. On 17 January, the High Seas Treaty entered into force, ending an era in which nearly half of the planet’s surface lay beyond meaningful collective governance. The shared ocean beyond national jurisdiction is home to some of the planet’s most important and least understood ecosystems. From immense oceanic ridges to deep sea corals and undiscovered species, high seas biodiversity is silently maintaining the balance of our planet. But until now, the high seas were a regulatory wild west and largely beyond the reach of meaningful environmental protection.

Entry into force changes that reality. For the first time, the global community has a legal framework to protect biodiversity in these waters...

Tropical coral reefs cover less than 1% of the seafloor, yet support 25% of all marine species. They are also incredibly vulnerable. Over the past few decades, an estimated 30%-50% have already been lost. Yet we are approaching a terrifying threshold. After record-breaking ocean heatwaves of 2023-24, which saw coral “bleaching” in at least 83 countries, scientists are looking towards 2026 with growing dread.

The question is whether this will be the year a global tipping point is reached for warm-water coral – a point beyond which their fate is sealed, and even the most resilient species can no longer recover.

The fate of these ecosystems may hinge on events in the Pacific Ocean, in particular a natural climate cycle called the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO)...

One of the largest artificial reefs in the world has been installed at a wind farm off the Sussex coast. The project at the Rampion Offshore Wind Farm is the first of its kind, with 75,000 specially designed “reef cubes” placed at the bottom of a single turbine. It is part of a nature-inclusive design project, with the cubes helping to protect the turbine from erosion while also serving as a home for a wide range of marine life.

Helen Elphick, an innovations partner at RWE, the company that operates Rampion, said it was exciting to be involved in a trial which was a “sustainable win-win”.

The reef cubes have been designed with a chamber in the middle and a honeycomb texture on the outside to encourage marine life to use them.

Samuel Hickling, the chief scientific officer at ARC...

A global agreement designed to protect the world’s oceans and reverse damage to marine life is set to become international law. The High Seas Treaty received its 60th ratification by Morocco on Friday, meaning that it will now take effect from January. The deal, which has been two decades in the making, will pave the way for international waters to be placed into marine protected areas.

Environmentalists heralded the milestone as a “monumental achievement” and evidence that countries can work together for environmental protection.

“Covering more than two-thirds of the ocean, the agreement sets binding rules to conserve and sustainably use marine biodiversity,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

Decades of overfishing, pollution from shipping and warming ocea...

The UK’s seas have had their warmest start to the year since records began, helping to drive some dramatic changes in marine life and for its fishing communities. The average surface temperature of UK waters in the seven months to the end of July was more than 0.2C higher than any year since 1980, BBC analysis of provisional Met Office data suggests. That might not sound much, but the UK’s seas are now considerably warmer than even a few decades ago, a trend driven by humanity’s burning of fossil fuels.

That is contributing to major changes in the UK’s marine ecosystems, with some new species entering our seas and others struggling to cope with the heat.

Scientists and amateur naturalists have observed a remarkable range of species not usually widespread in UK waters, including octo...

In 1986, just one year after Live Aid shook the world, another global event took place—one that mobilised 20 million people in 89 countries, raised $35 million, and helped cancel $150 million in African debt. It was called Sport Aid. Yet today, it’s been all but erased from public memory.

The BBC’s recent documentary on the 40th anniversary of Live Aid honours the cultural power of that moment. But in its final episode, it attributes Bob Geldof’s honorary knighthood solely to Band Aid and Live Aid. That’s simply not accurate. Geldof’s KBE came after Sport Aid—not as a continuation of Live Aid, but as a radical evolution of it.

I am not only the founder of earthdive, I also founded and organised Sport Aid with a different ambition...

A tiny, obscure animal often sold as aquarium food has been quietly protecting our planet from global warming by undertaking an epic migration, according to new research. These “unsung heroes” called zooplankton gorge themselves and grow fat in spring before sinking hundreds of metres into the deep ocean in Antarctica where they burn the fat. This locks away as much planet-warming carbon as the annual emissions of roughly 55 million petrol cars, stopping it from further warming our atmosphere, according to researchers.

This is much more than scientists expected. But just as researchers uncover this service to our planet, threats to the zooplankton are growing.

Scientists have spent years probing the animal’s annua...

Unregulated mining in the deep sea should not be allowed to go ahead, the head of the United Nations has warned. “The deep sea cannot become the Wild West,” UN Secretary General António Guterres said at the opening of the UN Oceans Conference in Nice, France. His words were echoed by French President Emmanuel Macron, who declared the “oceans are not for sale”.

The remarks appear to refer to the decision by President Trump in April to begin issuing permits for the extraction of critical minerals in international waters.

There is increasing interest in extracting precious minerals from what are called metallic “nodules” that naturally occur on the seabed.

But marine scientists are concerned about the harm that could be caused.

“The ocean is not for sale...